Our founder and CEO, Marc Mültin, talks about Josev Community, our new, free-to-all open source implementation of ISO 15118, and why it’s so important to us and the electric vehicle (EV) charging industry.
I’ve always believed in two things: sharing knowledge and moving in a greener way. For me, Switch is about helping others in the e-mobility industry to innovate and to accelerate the switch to electric vehicles. Working together, we’ll get there quicker. In our third episode of the Switch to Clarity webinar series, we presented for the first time Josev Community – our open-source gift to the e-mobility community.
It’s an exciting time, and I’m proud to be sharing with you today more about Josev Community and what’s next for us all.
To do that, I’ll run through some answers to a couple of great questions I’ve been asked, from the overview to the tech side, giving you a good idea of what Josev Community is all about.
Josev stands for Joint Operating System for EV charging. It’s an operating system for EV chargers that acts as the brain of the charging station.
Here’s what Josev does:
Our all-new website has even more about Josev. Take a look here
Josev Community is a baseline part of our commercial Josev Professional offering that we are making free and accessible for everyone to use. That’s why we called it Community - we wanted to let everyone get their hands on this unique code for EV chargers.
You may ask why we’ve done this (being a business that makes money), and that’s a good question. For us, the answer is simple: we want the whole e-mobility community to start with the same building blocks when it comes to creating a solid foundation for better EV charger software. We believe in moving together in a greener way; it’s part of our mission.
By making sure everyone has access to Josev Community, we can all build EV chargers with advanced features.
We aim to create a seamless charging experience for everyone and, this way, get more people to trust in reliable charging infrastructure for EVs through our software.
Sure. My team and I are working hard to get Josev Community released in May 2022. Josev Community will contain the following protocol implementations, written in (for those of you who love a bit of tech) Python:
In Josev Community, we'll also include our modified version of the popular EXIficient codec, extended with support for ISO 15118-20 messages. This will be available as a JAR file (Java). This codec allows EVs and chargers to exchange messages efficiently.
In a nutshell, ISO 15118 is an international standard that outlines the digital communication protocol that an electric vehicle and charging station should use to recharge the EV’s high-voltage battery.
As part of the Combined Charging System (CCS), ISO 15118 covers all charging-related use cases across the globe for all kinds of EVs, be it cars, motorbikes, buses, trucks, ships, or even aeroplanes.
This includes wired (AC and DC) and wireless charging applications and the pantographs used to charge larger vehicles like buses.
I’m glad you asked. What comes next is Josev Professional. It’s part of our complete Switch Suite for charging station manufacturers and operators.
Josev Professional is based on Josev Community and comes with crucial additions:
Some of the benefits of Josev Professional are:
Let’s take OCPP first. OCPP stands for Open Charge Point Protocol and is the standardised building block for communication between EV chargers and cloud-based charging station management systems, sometimes also referred to as back-end software.
There have been several versions of OCPP, and the latest version is 2.0.1. That’s the version we prioritise in Josev Professional.
OCPP 2.0.1 - especially when we combine it with ISO 15118 (and the latest version, ISO 15118-20) - allows us to create software with more of the new, advanced and future-proof features I discussed above.
With OCPP 2.0.1 and the new device model concept, a station can automatically describe its full layout and capabilities to the cloud-based CSMS. This allows for plug-and-play installation of a charging station. It also lets the CSMS read and control any component remotely.
Sara stands for Station Analytics and Remote Administration
The Open Charge Alliance is the official body that specifies OCPP 2.0.1 and defines a set of certification profiles. Each profile tests a certain set of functionalities. Depending on the functionality of your charger or CSMS, you might want to certify for either a subset or all of these profiles.
Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment (CI/CD)
Scotti stands for Simple Compliance Testing Tool for Interoperability.
Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) is a very compact representation of XML. All ISO 15118 messages are defined in XML. EXI improves serialisation and parsing speed on embedded devices (like an EV and a charging station controller) and allows more efficient use of memory and battery life, compared to standard (textual) XML.
The Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) is a lightweight, publish-subscribe network protocol that transports messages between devices.
A CSMS is a cloud-based management system operated by the company that is managing the charging stations. A charging station connects to a CSMS using OCPP (Open Charge Point Protocol).
Automated Connection Device (ACD), a conductive charging concept that doesn't require a person to plug in the charging cable. A first implementation is ACD-P, where 'P' stands for 'pantograph' charging of buses.
Power line communication, a communication technology that enables sending data over existing power cables.
Signal Level Attenuation Characterisation (SLAC) is based on power line communication (specifically HomePlug Green PHY) and is a protocol to establish the data link between the EV and the charging station via the charging cable.
Charge Point Operator, the entity monitoring and managing an EV charger network.